Nuprol Ultra Flat Paint

There’s always a bit of a debate in any airsoft group, as to whether camouflaging your precious AEG is a good thing or not. I’m quite happy to be the first to say that some people look on this practice with horror in their eyes and I do understand why. Ultimately, there is no such thing as a ‘cheap’ RIF; so, do you really want to cover all that black and shiny awesomeness with paint? If you want to resell said RIF at a later point, will a paintjob devalue it? I have to say that in my opinion the answer to question one in some cases is ‘yes’, and to question two ‘no’.

The blend

Let’s address question one first. When you embark on putting together your RIF, there are some fundamental points to look at; if the RIF is intended as a practical shooting tool for the range, then leaving it black is 100% fine, and in some cases, you may even want to ‘bling it up’ with a nice silver chrome flash hider or one of those lovely golden bolt covers. If, however, you’re building something for woodland environments, then you’re probably going to want to do something, as black really doesn’t occur naturally and stands out like a sore thumb.

In the woods, just as we apply cam cream to break up the outline of our face, so too should the outline of our rifle or carbine be muted. When I look to build a woodland rifle, I will immediately think about both the specific environment and the time of year that I’m going to be using it; if it’s high summer and I’m going to be playing in dense, sun mottled foliage, then I’ll look to a fairly ‘bright’ palette of colours, with more green in it than anything. If it’s autumn use, though, I’ll look to more browns.

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Consider this though. If you just paint your rifle in one block colour, although it will be better than plain black, it’s still just going to be a block. What you need to look at is blending colours effectively and picking up highlights, so that the overall shape becomes distorted. Think about those clever people that actually design camouflage patterns and you’ll come across words like ‘fractal’ and ‘pixelated’; good camouflage is all about the ‘blend’.

Market value

Now, to question two: many folk I speak to do believe that painting your RIF will affect its resale value if you want to sell it at a later date, and again I would be the first to say that a botched, badly achieved paintjob most certainly will. A good, well-achieved piece of work however, can actually increase the desirability of a replica; it’s all in the eye of the beholder at the end of the day; so, if you like the paintjob, then it will just mean you want ‘that rifle’ even more. Real world ‘shooters’, especially but not exclusively snipers, will camouflage their rifles for a reason, so why should we in our wideranging world of airsoft be any different?

There are lots of matt finish spray paints out there on the market, some easier to get hold of than others and I’ve used pretty much all of them over the years. Recently though, I’ve been working with the range of ‘Ultra Flat Paint’ (UFP) from NUPROL; the team there, airsofters themselves, have recognised that certain ‘big name’ brands of paint are both expensive and hard to get hold of; so, they’ve gone out and sourced their own. NUPROL offer the popular colours of Brown, Tan, Olive Green, and Black that we need for a really good spray up, they’ve priced them sensibly and made them easily available through their extensive dealer network. With an RRP of £7.99 a can, there’s no reason why you can’t afford a good spray job now!

Decisions, decisions

Whether or not the ‘painted operator rifle’ is for you, is down to personal preference. What I will tell you, is that the NUPROL paints are easy to work with, go on very effectively, and blend together perfectly. If you’re not confident in having a crack at spraying something yourself, then speak to people who have good examples of what can be achieved; in many cases, they’ll help you take your first steps to creating a masterpiece of your own.

For more information on the UFP range please just head on over to nuprol.com